Thursday, December 16, 2010

Obama take heed: French judge files charges against Kagame allies

Rwandan President Paul Kagame leads his troops.

Cynthia McKinney held hearings in 2001, in which she wrote:


There have been others since, including those held by Orange County Republican Congressman Ed Royce, who concluded that "the State Department didn't want to hear any of this though, as Kagame sat on their pedestal, and largely still does." 

Obama shepherded Senate Bill 2125, the Obama Congo Relief, Security, and Democracy Promotion Act into law in 2006. The Spanish Audiencia Nacional indicted Kagame's top officers for genocide.  There have been many UN and other human reports documenting the Kagame regime's atrocities and minerals plunder in the Democratic Republic of Congo.  On October 1st, the UN Mapping Report documented Rwanda's war crimes, crimes against humanity, and civilian massacres in D. R. Congo, crimes that an international criminal court would be expected to try as genocide.  How much more will it take?

How many of Obama's 2008 supporters ever read his 2006 Senate Bill, the only Senate Bill that will ever bear his name?

When will Obama revisit his own 2006 Senate Bill, and take heed of the 10.01 UN Report?  And, now, of the new French charges?  How much longer will the U.S. back the regime sued on two continents, in three countries, France, Spain, and the U.S.?   How long will the U.S. back the president that Professor Ed Herman, co-author, with David Peterson, of The Politics of Genocide, and, with Noam Chomsky, of "Manufacturing Consent," calls "the worst killer on the planet"?

Washington Post, 12.15.2010, http://goo.gl/eRHFT.


French judge files charges against Kagame allies

By PIERRE-ANTOINE SOUCHARDThe Associated Press 

By PIERRE-ANTOINE SOUCHARD
The Associated Press
Thursday, December 16, 2010; 9:38 AM


PARIS -- A French judge has filed preliminary charges against six people close to President Paul Kagame of Rwanda, including the defense minister, over the 1994 assassination of the country's then-president in a missile attack on his plane, their lawyers said Thursday.
The six - some ranking Rwandan army officials - were charged last week over the killing of Juvenal Habyarimana, they said. The assassination was widely seen as a trigger to Rwanda's genocide, in which an estimated 500,000 people, mostly ethnic Tutsis, were massacred in 100 days of frenzied killing led by radical Hutus.
Investigating Judge Marc Trevidic visited the Burundi capital of Bujumbura from Dec. 5 to Dec. 15, when the six agreed to be placed under investigation, said Bernard Maingain and Lev Forster, who represent all of the men.
Preliminary charges give officials time to pursue a probe before deciding whether to send suspects for trial or drop the case, and give suspects access to court files.


France is investigating the Rwanda case because the plane's crew was French and died with Habyaramina, along with then-president of Burundi Cyprien Ntaryamira.
Among the six people in question are ranking Rwandan army officers, including James Kabarebe, who has been Rwanda's defense minister since April, Charles Kayonga and Jackson Nkurunziza, the attorneys said. The remaining three were identified as Jacob Tumwine, Sam Kaka and Franck Nziza.
In November 2006, a now-retired anti-terrorism magistrate, Jean-Louis Bruguiere, delivered nine arrest warrants against people close to Kagame, all suspected of participating to various degrees in the April 6, 1994, attack.
The warrants triggered a break in diplomatic ties between France and Rwanda - re-established only in 2009. President Nicolas Sarkozy visited the Rwandan capital of Kigali last February, the first visit to Rwanda by a French leader in 25 years.
A Rwandan government-commissioned inquiry concluded that Hutu soldiers shot down the Hutu president's plane because they were opposed to a powersharing deal he backed.

4 comments:

  1. Ann Garrison should stop her malicious propaganda against the government of Rwanda because it appears she has a dangerous personal agenda for Rwanda. The charges against the Rwandan officers do not make them guilty or innocent but the significance of the charges is that the accused will no longer appear on interpol wanted list. They can move freely and appear in court to answer charges whenever necessary and the truth will come out whether these officers really downed habyarimana's plane. Considering that one of the accused (Lt. Col. Rose Kabuye)already appeared before French judges who had no evidence to convict the officers, the others too will come out clean.

    The UN Mapping Report which Ann Garrison likes to refer too in making false allegations against the Rwandan officials is nothing but a product of unprofessional investigators. Only experts can qualify whether crimes committed in DRC between 1993 and 2003 are either genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes or simply collateral damage at a time when Ex-FAR and Interahamwe militias were using civilians as human shield. The UN Mapping report has already been trashed as flawed, illegitimate and dangerous by legal experts, academics and diplomats such as former EU special envoy to the Great Lakes Region Mr. Aldo Ajello and Ambassador Mulamula of ICGLR.

    Ann Garrison deliberately ignores that there was only one genocide in the Great Lakes Region; the Tutsi genocide in Rwanda in 1994 and it was stopped by the RPF/A.

    Trying to fabricate other genocides is neither honest nor does it promote peace and security in the Great Lakes region. Ann Garrison and her Hutu extremist friends should thus give the region a chance to consolidate the peace and security that is already prevailing in Rwanda and is slowly but surely returning to DRC.

    F. Karagire
    kagiref@gmail.com

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  2. Ann, keep up the good work! I'm glad someone is keeping on these stories!

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  3. Ann, great to see you are getting comments too!

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  4. Good work.

    Whoever F Karagire is, s/he is most likely working for Kagame.

    His position is essentially: "if a massacre happens in a forest and there is no international tribunal to deem it a war crime, then it never really happened".

    Of course, since Rwanda refuses to adhere to any kind of international tribunal, no one ever officially judges them guilty of war crimes even though there is ample evidence in report after report by the UN experts, international human rights organisations, the EU, Commonwealth human rights experts, etc.

    Having served as a human rights officer in Rwanda, and political officer and DDRRR Team Leader in MONUC, I saw first hand Kagame's handiwork.

    But my word isn't necessary: there are plenty of Tutsi former RPF officials, like Patrick Karegaya [former chief of external security],Charles Kayumba [former Army chief of staff] who have said the same the same thing.

    The 6 million + people Kagame has killed in the DRC are about the same as the number of Jews killed by Hitler. This does include all those Kagame killed in Uganda and in his conquest of Rwanda to install his apartheid government.

    Tim Reid

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